ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Patterson Disciple Stelljes Holds Carnival in Lent
Pastor John Stelljes is quite busy these days -- busy building a church.
Stelljes has attracted nearly 50 people in the Greenwood area to become members of his new Light of Life Lutheran Church -- even with construction of a building still about two years in the future.
The church is the only one on the Southside of Indianapolis associated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, he said.
Stelljes -- who came from Orlando, Fla., in July to begin developing a congregation -- has been holding semimonthly Sunday services in the Greenwood Community Center, 100 Surina Way, since January.
Now, services will be at 9:30 a.m. weekly in the community center, and anyone interested in joining is welcome, he said.
The church offices are in its Ministry Center, 360 S. Madison Ave., Greenwood.
At 1 p.m. Friday, the Greater Greenwood Chamber of Commerce will hold a ceremony welcoming the church at a 7-acre field on the southeast edge of Greenwood where the church eventually will be built. The site is on the southwest corner of Sheek and Worthsville roads.
On Saturday, a free carnival will be held at Clark-Pleasant Intermediate School to introduce the church to the public.
Stelljes said the Wisconsin synod has some more theologically conservative teachings than other affiliations, such as the more populous Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. The Wisconsin synod has 1,290 congregations and nearly 400,000 baptized members in the United States.
"Our church body asked me if I was interested in starting a mission in Greenwood," Stelljes said.
He doesn't regret saying "yes."
"Since we moved here, we've found Greenwood an absolutely fabulous community," said Stelljes. He and his wife, Angela, and 3-year-old son, Jonah, have a home near the church site.
Founding members of Light of Life, he said, are "people who have been looking for a church and didn't have one."
A native of Minnesota, Stelljes grew up in Texas and graduated from Black Hills State University in South Dakota and the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.
***
GJ - Two people sent me this link. People are watching Church/Change and the odious Patterson Network. The Doctrinal Pussycats are not watching anything. This strikes everyone as crass and inappropriate. Once an LCA member brought up "having a carnival." A local business leader said, "You don't want those people in town. Their reputations are earned."
WELS is earning a reputation, too.
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New Greenwood Lutheran church to sponsor free carnival
Published March 18th, 2010
A new Greenwood church is introducing itself to the community with a carnival of free food, games, live music, puppet show and prizes.
The big event will be in the Clark-Pleasant Intermediate School from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. The school, near where the church will be built, is at Sheek and Worthsville roads on Greenwood’s southeast side.
Three-year-old Jonah sleeps on the shoulder of his father, Pastor John Stelljes, near mother, Angela (right), while committee member Angela Meister looks on. Photo by Mike Alexander/Southside Times
Light of Life Lutheran Church is host for the family fun carnival that also will include indoor bounce houses, face painters, an artist who makes characters out of balloons, fishing, bowling, ring toss and corn bag-in-the-hole contest.
Highest scorer in the basketball free-throw contest will win tickets to an Indiana Pacers game. Highest scorer in birdie golf will win an Otte Golf of Greenwood package.
“It’s our way of letting people know that we (as a church) are here for them,” said 34-year-old Pastor John Stelljes.
He and his wife, Angela, 30, are overseeing a dozen-member committee in promoting the community attraction.
Stelljes said the church will be built in about two years on a 7-acre site in the southwest sector of Worthsville and Sheek roads. Mayor Charles Henderson will cut the ribbon as part of the official grand opening of the church at the site at 1 p.m. Friday. Source
Warning to Bethany, MLC, and WLC: Another One Bites the Dust
for future ministers among the Happy Danes,
has been sold to a for-profit education firm.
"In 1884 Danish Lutheran pioneers established Trinity Seminary at Blair, Nebraska, for the purpose of training men for the parish ministry. Reverend A. M. Andersen, founder of the institution, began teaching seminary courses in his home. Two years later, the first permanent building on the campus was completed. The main emphasis during those early days was on theology and, although some academic courses were offered, they were taught primarily as a background for theological study. The need for additional academic courses was recognized but not fulfilled until 1899 when the Danish College at Elk Horn, Iowa, was merged with the Blair school. The result was the establishment of Dana College as a separate educational institution." Source
From Wikipedia:
The institution faced economic troubles in the 2000s. In 2010 it was sold to a group investors who formed the Dana Education Corporation. This group intends to transform the institution into a for-profit institution with a focus on "doubling enrollment, aggressively marketing the school and building Dana's study abroad program."
ELCA put a smiley face on the Happy Danes in their news release.
Some are asking, "Howzacome you are covering Blair, Nebraska in your position as self-appointed journalist for apostasy?"
I stayed overnight at Dana College when the Augustana College concert band toured the Great Plains. The Happy Danes were a tiny contingent of the LCA, often overlooked in the 1960s merger. The Happy Danes of the LCA were Grundtvigians, contrasted with the Gloomy Danes (Pietists) who joined The ALC.
Grundtvig wrote two very famous hymns: "Built on a Rock," and "God's Word is our great heritage."
Dana's room, board, and tuition were running at $27,000 a year when the school was sold to a for-profit, much like tiny Waldorf College in Iowa. Notre Dame and Yale are costing about $50,000 a year now.
The tiny colleges are failing because their fixed costs are extremely high while their appeal is rather limited. Strange how these little schools survived in the days before federal loans plumped up their finances.
How do they become for-profits? If I may share a few insights from Grand Canyon University, the process works this way:
1. The school is bought for a fraction of the cost of building a new campus.
2. Tenure ends and the over-paid and under-worked faculty may be fired.
3. Online students are added from all over the country.
The key is going online. People feel better about an actual campus location rather than getting a diploma from a server farm. I used to kid online students about logging onto their computers on graduation day for their jpg diploma. I get little in-house training certificates that way, but online graduation is normal, with robes and certificates and speeches.
Not long ago, online schools were a shock. Now everyone takes them for granted. The Ivy Leagues offer online courses. But Mrs. Ichabod and I went to college the old way, which comprises 16% of all college students today. Few can afford the luxury of living at school and taking classes. I commuted.
One college had to limit the number of online courses the students could take, because they were in the dorms and taking all online classes.
The itty-bitty WELS/ELS colleges will have to merge or sell themselves to a for-profit concern. They are not going to survive the next crunch.
Mary Lou College collects a huge fee for the paltry education offered.
Your Costs, 2009-2010
Tuition - $10,660
Room & Board - $4,140
Total = $14,800
For that they often get faculty whose education is little more than a bachelor's degree, in academic standing. Larry Olson has unaccredited MDiv and a Fuller DMin. With that he runs the "Staff Ministry" program, the foundation for women pastors in WELS. Most colleges would laugh at his qualifications to teach. In the Assemblies of God, or the CLC (sic), he would be among the intellectual giants.
Jobs are few in New Ulm. Anyone could stay home, work full-time, and earn an online degree with that amount of money. The teacher candidates are not going to teach. The future ministers will need to have picked the right parents to get a call. If they attend Chicanery conferences, they may get two calls.
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Apostates Have the Same DNA
and excused for their behavior, says Luther.
Luther says this about false teachers:
False Doctrine Tolerated
"And such false teachers have the good fortune that all their folly is tolerated, even though the people realize how these act the fool, and rather rudely at that. They have success with it all, and people bear with them. But no patience is to be exercised toward true teachers! Their words and their works are watched with the intent of entrapping them, as complained of in Psalm 17:9 and elsewhere. When only apparently a mote is found, it is exaggerated to a very great beam. No toleration is granted. There is only judgment, condemnation and scorn. Hence the office of preaching is a grievous one. He who has not for his sole motive the benefit of his neighbor and the glory of God cannot continue therein. The true teacher must labor, and permit others to have the honor and profit of his efforts, while he receives injury and derision for his reward."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 110f. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9. Psalm 17:9.
God Punishes Ingratitude by Allowing False Teachers
"In the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws upon them and teaching works-righteousness. The effect is that fear impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were bondslaves, while their teachers command fear and attention. But the true teachers, they who give us freedom of conscience and create us lords, we soon forget, even despise. The dominion of false teachers is willingly tolerated and patiently endured; indeed, it is given high repute. All those conditions are punishments sent by God upon them who do not receive the Gospel with love and gratitude."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 111. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9. John 5:43.
False Teachers Flay Disciples to Bone
"In the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those from whom they receive the Word of God, and permit the latter to serve them at their own expense, it is but fair they should give the more unto preachers of lies, whose instruction redounds to their injury. What is withheld from Christ must be given in tenfold proportion to the devil. They who refuse to give the servant of truth a single thread, must be oppressed by liars."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 111f. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
Avarice in False Teachers
"Fourth, false apostles forcibly take more than is given them. They seize whatever and whenever they can, thus enhancing their insatiable avarice. This, too, is excused in them."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
They Lord It Over Us
"Fifth, these deceitful teachers, not satisfied with having acquired our property, must exalt themselves above us and lord it over us...We bow our knees before them, worship them and kiss their feet. And we suffer it all, yes, with fearful reverence regard it as just and right. And it is just and right, for why did we not honor the Gospel by accepting and preserving it?"
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
We Are Dogs and Foot-Rags
"Sixth, our false apostles justly reward us by smiting us in the face. That is, they consider us inferior to dogs; they abuse us, and treat us as foot-rags."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
False Doctrine Tolerated
"And such false teachers have the good fortune that all their folly is tolerated, even though the people realize how these act the fool, and rather rudely at that. They have success with it all, and people bear with them. But no patience is to be exercised toward true teachers! Their words and their works are watched with the intent of entrapping them, as complained of in Psalm 17:9 and elsewhere. When only apparently a mote is found, it is exaggerated to a very great beam. No toleration is granted. There is only judgment, condemnation and scorn. Hence the office of preaching is a grievous one. He who has not for his sole motive the benefit of his neighbor and the glory of God cannot continue therein. The true teacher must labor, and permit others to have the honor and profit of his efforts, while he receives injury and derision for his reward."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 110f. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9. Psalm 17:9.
God Punishes Ingratitude by Allowing False Teachers
"In the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws upon them and teaching works-righteousness. The effect is that fear impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were bondslaves, while their teachers command fear and attention. But the true teachers, they who give us freedom of conscience and create us lords, we soon forget, even despise. The dominion of false teachers is willingly tolerated and patiently endured; indeed, it is given high repute. All those conditions are punishments sent by God upon them who do not receive the Gospel with love and gratitude."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 111. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9. John 5:43.
False Teachers Flay Disciples to Bone
"In the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those from whom they receive the Word of God, and permit the latter to serve them at their own expense, it is but fair they should give the more unto preachers of lies, whose instruction redounds to their injury. What is withheld from Christ must be given in tenfold proportion to the devil. They who refuse to give the servant of truth a single thread, must be oppressed by liars."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 111f. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
Avarice in False Teachers
"Fourth, false apostles forcibly take more than is given them. They seize whatever and whenever they can, thus enhancing their insatiable avarice. This, too, is excused in them."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
They Lord It Over Us
"Fifth, these deceitful teachers, not satisfied with having acquired our property, must exalt themselves above us and lord it over us...We bow our knees before them, worship them and kiss their feet. And we suffer it all, yes, with fearful reverence regard it as just and right. And it is just and right, for why did we not honor the Gospel by accepting and preserving it?"
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
We Are Dogs and Foot-Rags
"Sixth, our false apostles justly reward us by smiting us in the face. That is, they consider us inferior to dogs; they abuse us, and treat us as foot-rags."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, VII, p. 112. Second Sunday in Lent. 2 Corinthians 11:19-33; 12:1-9.
***
GJ - Nothing Luther wrote 500 years ago is wrong about the apostates of today. They have the same DNA, generation after generation. Their reward is peace and security on earth, followed by an eternity of turmoil. Meanwhile, the faithful face a brief period of turmoil before they find eternal rest.
The midwives of apostasy should be anxious about their future. They are the ones who pose as confessionals or conservatives while gently and diplomatically excusing the doctrine, behavior, and wreckage of the apostates.
In WELS alone, it is easy to track millions of dollars wasted by these junkyard dogs, whose only spiritual gift is their protection of their money and perks. The Chicaneries spent all of the Schwan money, liquidated the rotating gift fund, and hired one another for the cushy positions at the Love Shack, the Sausage Factory, and Mary Lou College. Meanwhile, they published lavish praise for themselves in FIC (nee The Northwestern Lutheran).
Multiply this in the larger groups. ELCA is delighted to have only two retired bishops fighting them over gay ordination while the active bishops place their consecrated and consecrating hands on the lavender mob formerly roped off from the Holy of Holies. Who helped achieve this triumph? Answer - The two retired bishops, who acted as midwives for ELCA and now sound like fishwives to the progressives who run the show.
I knew retired bishop Ken Sauer back in 1973, when I was just ordained and he was newly enthroned as Ohio Synod, LCA, bishop. In God's time, it is a short transformation from the midwife of apostasy to the fishwife of the retrosexuals.
It will take a lot of money, trust me.
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